Oregon Flock & Fiber 2007

I love Oregon Flock and Fiber!


But before I even went there I had to drop off a yarn order for Woolgirl. We have been trying to meet for sometime now and something always came up, so now was our chance! I dropped the yarn off at her house, a mere 20 minutes away from OFFF. I got to meet Abby as well, who is a sweety. I also got a behind the scenes look at Woolgirl. Just imagine handpainted yarn floor to ceiling from some of the most well known dyers around. I just kept looking and looking at it and reading all of the names. It was also just so awesome to meet Jennifer in person. She is so sweet and great, that I am proud to be doing business with her. Of course, the only sad thing is that I completely forgot to get out my camera and take pictures of any of it. In fact I didn't remember to take pictures until pretty late in the day at OFFF, but I did get a few:

This is a few of the booths that were outside. My inside pictures didn't turn out very well, and I kept being distracted by people I know and all the pretty yarn and fiber.

I got this fabulous photo of Chrissy and Donna manning Chrissy's booth. If you look carefully there in the back is the last skeins of my Mt Hood yarn. Apparently it was very popular! Amanda was there earlier with her adorable baby boy. He has grown so much since I last saw him in June when the Yarn Harlot came to Portland. I saw so many people that I will probably forget somebody, but here goes: I saw Mims, Meghan, Jodie, Sara, and Sarah. The most surprising person I saw there was Shelley, who doesn't have a blog, but was one of my roommates when I got to study in Italy. Small world, huh?

Dicentra had a sale on a few of her yarns for 50% off. How could I resist? I had to have both of these. They are a worsted weight 50% wool 50% alpaca. They are each 4 oz and 250 yards. I'm thinking possibly Baby Surprise jackets, or mittens, or who knows? They are just mine now.

This is the lovely duet yarn. I have long wanted this yarn because of the novel idea of having solid heels and toes. Of course, I could have dyed it for myself, but what would be the fun in that?

I couldn't escape the Blue Moon booth without something. I just love their silkie yarn. I had a hard time deciding which color that I really really wanted and it finally landed with Hollyday!



This yarn is from Chameleon Colorworks! She is a very lovely dyer and a very wonderful person to talk to. I enjoyed chatting with her quite a bit. The 3 on the left are all Superwash/Tencel blends and the 1 on the right is optim merino. She had everything on sale and had such pretty colorways that I just had to get some. The optim was in odd lots of 1/2 skeins. I'm thinking something for a baby like socks or a hat. Optim is so soft and is machine washable. I gave a skein each of the Tencel to Sarah and to Destiny, because they couldn't make it this year to OFFF. I hope that it will console them a little bit.

The only thing that I didn't get a picture of (besides a few things that may or may not turn up around Christmas time) was a lovely set of Handworks Northwest Dressing wires, because I am sure that you will see plenty of pictures of them in the future. I love them a lot. I bought them from Sporfarm. She is out of The Dalles and is going to officially open up her shop on her farm with regular hours and everything very soon. She has promised to let me know all about it, so I will keep you posted if I hear anything!

Rosepath is up!

My rosepath scarf is now for sale in .pdf here:

http://www.knotanotherhat.com/productDetail.cfm?product_id=890

Thanks and Enjoy!

Rosepath

One of our regular customers, who also takes quite a few classes, asked for a beaded knitting class. I started thinking about it and got an idea in my head. I started searching all over for a pattern, but nothing was quite what I wanted. So, I decided to design something myself. This is the first time I have ever charted lace and it was a lot of fun. I have it all done and the pattern will be available soon:

I named it Rosepath, because the first weaving pattern I ever did was called rosepath. My grandmother set up a rosepath scarf on the loom. It was really incredible to me. For those of you who don't weave, rosepath is a diamond pattern with a dot in the middle. For my scarf it is a diamond with a bead in the middle. Very fitting I think.


Rosepath is knit out of La Luz silk in Color#17121 Poppies, which is a lucious wonderful yarn that I highly recommend. Though how can you go wrong with 100% handpainted silk? Sarah thought it would be a good idea to work together with a local bead store. So I need to make 2 of these. One for display at Knot Another Hat and another one to be on display at the bead shop, Ikote. I am nearly done with this first one. It just needs to be blocked. The pattern will be free in the shop with the purchase of a skein of the La Luz silk. It will also be for sale as a .pdf download through Knot Another Hat. I'll let you know when it is up.

I also have a Finished Object to show off. These are my felted clogs all felted and finished and everything. I love them a whole lot. I am letting the shop borrow them for display for the holiday season to give people some inspiration. They are knit out of Naturally Nazareth Color #1303 Winter and Cascade 22o Color #9457 Cobalt. I just love how the Naturally Nazareth felted. The colors just blended together and turned out just perfect!

I also have started a new class on the Forest Canopy Shawl. This is a great beginner shawl that is a lot of fun to teach. I have started a new shawl to knit with the class out of Miner Creek Alpaca in Color #111 Catherine Creek. This yarn is super awesome. I bought it months ago as a special skein just for me. I'm just not sure who the shawl will go to. I might just keep it for myself, but I haven't totally decided yet.


There was a little bit of excitement this last week. A small forest fire was started by a spark from a train across the river. This is the view from Knot Another Hat's balcony. Thankfully it was contained very quickly. A couple of houses were lost, but nobody was hurt. Here's the local newspaper's account of it, if you would like to know more.

Last, but not least, here are a few pics of our D&D night while we are fighting a big pink blob. Pics thanks to Amy, the rockinest pink haired gnome ever! My character is in the back (most of the time), that's right far far away from the snowball of doom!

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Business

So, I have both good and bad news business wise. On the bad news front, Chrissy has decided to no longer sell her patterns through her website. Which means that she isn't going to carry my yarn in kits with her patterns any longer.

On the good news front I have a new account. The Fiber Lady makes kits out of fabulous yarns for braiding and beading. She just loves my handpainted nylon ribbon. So do I, for that matter. We are currently talking details for a possible project. I'll keep you posted if anything comes about from it, but I can say that I am pretty excited about the possibilities.

On the new and wonderful front, I have been dyeing roving for Knot Another Hat. So far I have only dyed up the superwash. I am really excited about this too. I am going to keep it pretty exclusive to the shop to see how things go. I'm not sure if it will be put up on the website, so if you would like to order some of it before it is gone, you can email the store at customerservice@knotanotherhat.com

This is the first batch I took down. From back left to front right they are: Mountain Sunset, Americana, Tequila, Autumn Splendor, and Chocolate Raspberry. Each of the balls is 4oz each, so plenty for a hat or mittens or socks. You get the idea. Prices should be around $14 each. Except for Dragon Fire in the next set, because it is 3.5 oz, so it should be a little less.

Here is the rest of the batch: Top left to right: Cinder, Candy Cane Lane, Princess, Day at the Fair, and Dragon Fire Spot. Bottom left to right: Sea Turtle Spot, Sea Turtle, Dragon Fire, Raspberry Lemonade, and Rosebud.


Also, I just got this lovely skein of handspun finished. It is called Berry Pie. It is 4 3/8 oz and is 328 yards. It is a fingering weight and would definitely make a pair of socks. It is 80% superwash and 20% silk. It is also currently for sale at Knot Another Hat for $24.00.

I do have some other ideas for fall, so we shall see how they go.

Summer is for Dyeing

So, last Sunday was the last dye class of the summer. Technically of the year too. We'll start up dye classes again next spring in the sun. My next post will be what I have been doing to gear up for Fall and the impending Christmas season.


I didn't get a whole lot of pictures, but I will share with you a couple. Green seemed to be the color of the evening. Given the choice of all 12 colors, my lovely students chose an array of greens, blues, and yellows. I guess that's what we get for being in Oregon! It was a lovely evening and I think everybody came away with plenty of new yarn in their favorite colorways.

Here are some of the skeins out of the first batch that we did. There were 2 batches, but it was too dark for my camera. Sarah hosted the event and might have pictures later. My students included two returning members, Destiny and Julia. New to the class were Nicole, Meghan, and Mims. (Mims has a post up about the dye class here).

Disturbing

Overall I like to think that the world is really alright. Then I come across sites like this: Marry Our Daughter

Let me just say that this is fairly disturbing. 95% of the girls on this site are underage. I cannot believe that such a site exists! I am sure there are some that are much worst, but this fairly disturbed me and I thought I would share!

ETA: Perhaps this helps explain the site: http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/marryourdaughter.asp

Thanks Jen for the link!

Christmas in September

Every year I like to start planning my Christmas knitting in September. So last year I just kept everybody in suspense as to what I was knitting until it was unveiled in December. Not this year! This year I am going to mix everything in, but you won't find out who it is for until Christmas. Luckily I have a lot of the same type of people to knit for. There are guys, girls, and a few babies on the horizon too. So we shall see how it goes. Also, I may not post everything and not everything I am knitting is for Christmas, just to keep things interesting.


To start off with I have a FO. This bitty kitty is actually destined for one of Blair's coworker's son. We were invited to attend his 2nd birthday party this weekend. Apparently he really likes kitties, so I had to make this! It is Monsieur Cat from Lucinda Guy's book Handknits for Kids. It is an awesome book that has a ton of really good patterns for both boys and girls. I knit it out of Cash Vero colors Red & Light Blue. It should be up on Knot Another Hat soon. It is an awesome yarn that turned out really nice and soft and squishy. Just perfect for a 2 year old boy!


Next up I have been working on a Baby Hoody from Debbie Bliss Special Knits. This has actually been my easy project while I have been going to the dentist. I have terrible teeth and have been putting off going for awhile, but now we have dental insurance, so back to the dentist we go. Blair had his appointment to have a couple of tiny tiny cavities filled before I had my appointment for my root canal and crown. So I sat and knit away on this bitty thing. It is actually quite calming and a lot of fun to knit, without a whole lot of thinking, which is good. I am knitting it out of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran in color #603 Dusty Pink.


Next up, I have been working away on the Skull Socks for my husband. I'm not sure if you can tell, but the heel has now been turned. I was a little worried about them being a bit too loose after finishing the colorwork, so I have switched from #3s to #2s. These will be very nice and toasty socks. You may also notice that they may have turned into slightly longer than ankle socks, but hey, anything to get them done and off the needles. I am knitting it out of Cool Wool color #433 Black and #432 Cream.

I have been teaching a class on the Fibertrends Felted Clogs Pattern. They are a lot of fun and knit up super fast. I did most of this while waiting 45 minutes for my husband to pick me up after work. I will say that the trick with felted clogs is that the first one takes about a week to knit and the second one takes an evening. They are magic slippers! I knit one pair before for last Christmas for my Grandfather, so I at least have the experience. The class is going great and tonight is their last session. Hopefully most of them will be done with their first slipper! I am knitting mine out of Cascade 220 color #9457 Cobalt and Naturally Nazareth color #1303 Winter.

Lastly, I have been knitting a baby surprise jacket from Elizabeth Zimmermann's The Opinionated Knitter. I am knitting it out of Noro Kureyon. I believe this one is going to be frogged. I love the pattern and I love the yarn, but I feel like the yarn is a little too rough for a baby thing. Also, the yarn has been talking to me telling me that what it really wants to be is a felted bowl. Every time I knit with it the yarn just says over and over felted bowl....felted bowl.... So who am I to argue? I have 3 balls, so I am sure that I will have quite a lovely set of bowls by the time I am done. Just look at the colors of that! They will be simply gorgeous.

In other news: I sent off a huge shipment of yarn to Woolgirl today, so she should have up an update in the near future. From the comments I just wanted to say that I have been doing business with Woolgirl for quite awhile and love her shop very much. I was one of her first suppliers and I have really enjoyed the past 6 months of working with her.

I should also have some more yarn up in my shop, not much, but a bit, in the very near future.